A recent article in a Beltway publication warned about a potential recession and considered how it might affect President Trump’s chances at re-election. The story began—no joke: “The luxury real estate market in Manhattan is sagging.”

It goes on to argue that softening in the real-estate market in high-tax Northeastern states is caused by the 2017 tax-reform law. Thus the claim is that because taxpayers can deduct only $10,000 in state and local taxes from their federal returns, America is heading for a recession.

Nonsense.

The tax-reform law stops high-tax states from burdening the rest of us with their irresponsible decisions. America is a marketplace where states are competing with each other, and New York is losing. Their loss is Florida’s gain—and Texas’ and South Carolina’s and Ohio’s and Indiana’s.

I would like to tell New Yorkers on behalf of the rest of America that our hearts go out to you for your sagging luxury real-estate market. But you did this to yourself, and you can fix it yourself. If you cut taxes and make state and local government efficient, maybe you can compete with Florida again.

When classical musicians audition for a symphony orchestra, they play behind a screen.  They are completely anonymous to the committee on the other side of it, who knows them only by a number.  They are prohibited from speaking to the committee.

Prior to the audition, the musician is given a list of classical repertoire pieces from which he or she will be asked to play a number of excerpts, anywhere from one to three minutes of each selection.  The selections of music will vary depending on the player's instrument.

This process is one of the fairest on the planet.  Not the age, sex, or race of the player is known to the committee who will be deciding which musicians will be chosen.  Candidates are selected on expertise, musical merit alone.

Obviously, the system of college admissions is the farthest from this level of fairness as it can possibly be, but what if it were reformed to be as fair?

Sunday (3/17) was St. Patrick's Day here in Ireland, and around the world as well.  In places like New York and Boston, it's a day to celebrate Irish heritage and to get disgracefully drunk, but not in Ireland, where it's also a national holiday.

Ireland is changing in other ways as well. Gay marriage (we have a gay Taoiseach, or prime minister) is in, and so is abortion.  Having joined the EU against its will, Ireland has now come to embrace the enervated "modernity" of France and Germany.

It's like watching a child parading around in its grandfather's tie-dyed bell bottoms and thinking he's now a sophisticated grownup. Ireland needs St. Patrick again.

Five years ago in mid-March 2014, Russian “little green men” soldiers in unmarked army uniforms and masks took full control of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

On March 18 of that year, President Vladimir Putin made a jubilant address to the Russian Federation Council (upper chamber of parliament) on the “reunification” with Crimea, asserting, “In people’s hearts and minds, Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia” (Kremlin.ru, 3/18/2014).

The forceful dismemberment of Ukraine and the illegal annexation of Crimea produced an explosion of jingoist triumphalism in Russia, which effectively made most of its citizens accomplices in that blatant violation of international law and 21^st-century norms of European inter-state behavior.

Since then, the “patriotic mobilization” has mostly dissipated and Russian trust in Putin’s leadership has hit a low of 32 percent, according to the official pollster VTsIOM (Wciom.ru, 3/03/2019).  More and more it’s looking like Putin’s seizure of Crimea has cost Russia its future.

Here’s the problem. Whether we eventually build a wall is irrelevant to the calculations of the current crop of migrants, because they know, right now and for the foreseeable future, illegal immigration simply is not punished in the United States. On the contrary, it is rewarded.

You see, the Trump Administration has already tried to implement policies that automatically deny Central Americans and sundry border-hoppers eligibility to apply for asylum. In effect, the Supreme Court has already ruled—thanks to Chief Justice Roberts, who sided with the court’s four liberals—that illegal crossers are entitled to an asylum hearing.

A more recent case may even give rejected asylum seekers the right to appeal. Given the massive backlog, this guarantees asylum seekers, even the most dishonest and dangerous among them, the right to impose themselves on the American people for years to come.

Let’s face it. Given the sheer irrationality of the current system and the out-of-touch judges who preside over it, we must consider practicable alternatives.  Here’s a solution that could really work.

I didn’t say that Boeing is arrogant. I said they have their noses in the air.  Jokes aside, l’Affaire Boeing is a watershed.

President Trump is under pressure to circle the wagons around one of America’s flagship industrial companies, among other reasons because China will exploit the crisis to promote its new entry into the civil aircraft market.

He made a good start yesterday (3/13) by grounding the Boeing 737 Max aircraft in US airspace, after the horrific Ethiopian Airlines crash Sunday (3/10) that killed 157.

To follow up, he should ignore the legions of industry lobbyists and their Hallelujah chorus at the Pentagon, and take the opportunity to clean out the swamp in America’s military industry.  Here’s what’s going on.